A few months ago, Anatii took the bold step of removing his music from all traditional Digital Streaming Services (DSPs). Shortly afterwards, he released a new single titled “Punisher” as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT).
NFTs have become a global phenomenon in the art space over the past few years as creators across art, fashion and entertainment seek to take control of their craft and protect their intellectual property.
“removed my solo albums from STREAMING PLATFORMS,” he shared. “it’s been good. ndiyabulela.”
removed my solo albums from STREAMING PLATFORMS. it’s been good. ndiyabulela.
— ANATII.eth (@ANATII) June 13, 2022
Apart from launching “Punisher”, Anatii has been paying close attention to the creative NFT space over the years and has previously shown support for creatives like local internationally acclaimed digital artist, Lethabo Huma.
“Let’s speak on people like Lethabo Huma,” he says when we speak. “Let’s highlight great creatives that we have in South Africa, but who are also making international strides and doing things with Time Magazine, Southerbys (sic), Christies (sic), and all sorts of amazing things.
“And no one even knows and people will just go online and diss you or say whatever but the thing is what you have to realise is that people are misinformed. If you’re misinformed and you don’t have the information then you won’t know,” he says.
The 30-year-old went on to add that if you’re not exposed or take the time to do the research then you won’t know what’s happening in spaces such as this.
“To the general public it’s still not a mass adopted, call it technology or product or anything like that, it’s still in its infant stages on a global scale.
“But the impact is still crazy because real human beings are putting their value behind it, and that’s what some people are not understanding.”
time for creators to take control. sell art not your soul.
“No one’s just sitting on their computer playing games, it’s people putting money behind the technology. And if you can get in front of the technology, then you’ll make money,” he says.
He goes on to add that there’s a need to create access points and that if people don’t share this information people won’t know about it.
“So when we drop things like NFTs and drop songs as NFTs, yes part of it is like case studies, but at the same time we’re able to assess within the market that this is what the adoption level is like, this is what the barriers of entry are within the region and these are all the challenges we’re being faced with in terms of legislation when it comes to the reserve bank and all these different things,” Anatii concluded.